This invention relates to a coffee maker capable of providing freshly brewed coffee from raw coffee beans through a process of roasting, grinding, and brewing the coffee.
The applicant has previously proposed coffee makers capable of providing coffee completely automatically from raw or green coffee beans, as described in Japanese patent early publication Hei. 2-237,519 dated 9/20/90early publication Hei. 3-251,212 dated 11/8/91, and early publication Hei. 4-40916 dated 2/12/92. The coffee makers described therein are equipped with a roaster which roasts the raw coffee beans, a combination mill-brewing unit which grinds the roasted coffee beans and then brews and filters the coffee from the ground beans, a blower unit which blows cooling air into said combination mill-brewing unit to cool the roasted beans before grinding, a water supply unit which pours hot water into said combination mill-brewing unit, and a coffee server which collects the coffee which has been brewed and filtered by said combination mill-brewing unit. In addition, with the fully automatic coffee maker proposed in Japanese patent early publication Hei. 4-224719 (laid open 8/14/92), there is provided a temporary holding tank separate from the combination mill-brewing unit, and the roasted coffee beans are first collected into this temporary holding tank, where they are cooled by a blower unit before being transferred to the combination mill-brewing unit.
However, with the coffee makers of the prior art described above, because the grinding of the coffee beans and the brewing of the coffee were carried out in the same container, the cutter blades for the mill were located inside the brewing container, and as a result, disposal of the used coffee grounds and cleaning after brewing were troublesome, requiring both time and labor. In addition, because of this drawback, if it were desired to use the coffee maker more than once continuously, it would not be possible to reuse it immediately after each previous was.
Thus, a primary objective of this invention is to provide a coffee maker which solves the problems of the prior art described above; in other words, the coffee maker provides for easy disposal of the used coffee grounds and cleaning after brewing, and which is capable of being reused immediately.